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HARMONICS at La Cote Lapin
June 17 - July 9, 2023
Drawing on her own experimental multiple-exposure photographs, the artist explores the fantastic intersections and fractured geometries of urban living.
ARTIST STATEMENT
I used to drink A LOT. I loved the way drinking smoothed out the rough edges, made it easier to interact with other humans, and altered my psychic landscape. At a certain point of inebriation my eyes would start to do funny things: lights took on a soft glow, my eyes would unfocus themselves at random, and I often experienced double vision. These visual effects caused by my substance of choice were a delight. I felt as if the world around me was shedding her workday costume so I could see what lay beneath the layers.
While my passion for alcohol was fervent, it was also destroying my liver. Alcohol and I have now parted ways forever. Sobriety is a wonderful gift and it has improved my life in innumerable ways, but I still missed the unique visual distortions that were a byproduct of my drinking habits.
In my quest to “see in a drunken way” while sober, I stumbled on the idea of multiple exposure photography. These complex, layered, cinematic images eventually became my painting Here at last I could feel the swirl and ambiguity of a night out drinking, and with little to no hangover. In these images the city is never still: lights dance and twirl, fellow humans hide and fragment themselves, architecture bends and sings along with me. Shadows take menacing shape. Neon lights arch in elegant arabesque. The rapture and filth and lust of city life blooms in these images. In my painting studio, the images take on new musculature, sing in new voices, breathe and hum seductively. It's my hope that they produce in the viewer the same inspiration, dislocation, joy and revelation that I regularly experience, even in sobriety.
Oil and acrylic on cradled wood panel, 30 x 40 inches
selected for NY Artist’s Equity Invitational 2022
Oil and acrylic on wood panel, 18 x 24 in
From a double exposure photo taken on a trip to San Francisco. Every time I visit the city by the bay (where I lived for 7 years) I am struck by the aggressive strain of gentrification sweeping over downtown. I made this image outside a coffee shop in the Financial District, I wanted to capture the fleeting and transitory energy of everyone fully caffeinated and lightly packed.
Oil and acrylic on cradled wood panel, 18 x 24 in - PRIVATE COLLECTION
In 2022, my collaborator Lisa Levy and I had a booth at the SPRING/BREAK art fair in Manhattan. I’d always wanted to participate in the fair and it was a wonderful, if exhausting, experience. Walking out of the fair into a warm and emptied-out midtown Manhattan was a stark contrast to the close quarters and raucous energy of the fair. Spotting this couple and their private romance felt like the perfect thing.
Oil and acrylic on wood panel, 24 x 24 in
I went through a breakup in early 2023 that really set me back. To give myself a break, I went to visit my good friend and fellow artist Cindy Stockton Moore in Philly. She was working at the Philadelphia Flower Show and she made us both flower crowns. Definitely helped my heart heal.
Oil on canvas, 24 x 30in
From a double exposure image I made in the Greek and Roman sculpture court at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, one of my favorite spaces in New York. The power of the stories told by these broken, ancient things always floors me.
Oil and acrylic on cradled wood panel, 30 x 40 in
After many years and various psychiatric interventions, I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2022. It was a great relief to be able to directly treat my symptoms, and there was also a freedom to giving a name and shape to the roller coaster of my emotions. The diagnosis was also jarring, really forcing me to thing about myself differently in the world. This painting comes closest to describing how I felt to break apart and reform this aspect of my identity.
Oil and acrylic on wood panel, 36 x 36 in - PRIVATE COLLECTION
From a double exposure photo taken at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
Oil on unstretched canvas, approx 36 x 50 in
oil on canvas, 52 x 38 in - PRIVATE COLLECTION
Oil on aluminum composite, 20 x 30 in
Two-person show with fellow auto enthusiast/skeptic Monte Antrim. Curated by M.S. Quinlan.
On view November 25 - Jan 1 at La Côte Lapin in Williamsburg.
Acrylic on wood panel, 16 x 20 in
Acrylic on cradled wood panel, 9 x 12 in
Acrylic on cradled wood panel, 6 x 6 in
Acrylic on wood panel, 12 x 12 in
Acrylic on canvas, 16 x 20 in
Acrylic on wood panel, 8 x 16 in
Acrylic on wood panel, 8 x 16 in
Acrylic on wood panel, 12 x 12 in
Acrylic on wood panel, 12 x 12 in
Ink and acrylic on tar paper, approximately 11 x 14 in
THIS IS A COLLABORATIVE WORK
Acrylic, ink and label on tar paper, approx 9 x 11 in
THIS IS A COLLABORATIVE WORK
Acrylic on wood panel, 4 x 4 in
Acrylic on wood panel, 4 x 4 in
Acrylic on wood panel, 6 x 6 in
‘Subway Series’ at La Cote Lapin
June 4 - 26 2022
opening reception June 4 6-9p
98 South 2nd St in Williamsburg, garden level
gallery hours Saturday and Sunday 2-7p
What does it feel like to be an individual in a vast city? Here, the artist searches for answers in the expressions and postures of her fellow MTA passengers.
The Subway Series (2018 - ongoing) is comprised of several medium-sized oil paintings created on salvaged sign blanks. The brushed aluminum of the sign material provides a reflective background that easily alludes to the metal interior of most MTA subway cars. The images are gleaned from the artists’ practice of photographing other passengers on the NYC subway, all of which are collected on the instagram @subway_metro
These works will be the focus of a solo show in June 2022 in Williamsburg. Email for more details!
The titles of each work in the series are taken from whatever song was playing in the artists headphones at the time the reference photo was taken.
oil on shaped aluminum composite sign blank, approx 20 x 20 in
oil on salvaged aluminum composite, approx 20 x 20 in
oil on salvaged aluminum composite, approx 20 x 20 in
oil on aluminum composite, approx 20 x 20 in
oil on aluminum composite
approx 20 x 20 in
oil on reclaimed shaped aluminum composite
approx 20 x 20in
2022, oil on shaped aluminum composite sign blank, approx 20 x 20 in
2022
oil on reclaimed aluminum composite
approx 18 x 22 in
2022, oil on reclaimed shaped aluminum composite
roughly 20 x 20 in
oil on reclaimed aluminum composite sign blank, approx 20 x 20
oil on shaped aluminum composite, roughly 20 x 20 in
2019, oil on shaped aluminum composite sign blank, approx 20 x 20 in
oil on salvaged aluminum composite, approx 20 x 20 in
oil on salvaged aluminum composite
approx 20 x 20 in
2018, oil on aluminum composite
approx 20 x 20 in
2018, oil on aluminum composite
approx 20 x 20 in
2018, oil on aluminum composite
approx 20 x 20 in
oil on cradled wood panel, 30 x 40 in.
‘But What Do You Think of My Work?’ is an ongoing art and installation project conceived by Lisa Levy and Sharilyn Neidhardt. The artists created a fictional persona - Skye Cleary - and created artwork as Skye. Lisa and Sharilyn wrote a deeply researched back story for Ms Cleary, who is stripping her way through art school. In the installation,
’But What Do You Think of My Work?’ was realized in early October 2019 at Satellite Art Fair in Brooklyn. A borrowed sex doll stood for Skye Cleary in the installation, which was presented as the fictional artist’s open studio. Ephemera from Levy’s and Neidhardt’s studios was staged around the work ‘created by’ Skye, where she welcomed visitors throughout the long weekend of the art fair.
acrylic on canvas, 16 x 20 in
16 x 20 in, acrylic on canvas
16 x 20, acrylic on canvas
16 x 20, acrylic on canvas
16 x 20, acrylic on canvas
16 x 20, acrylic on canvas
16 x 20, acrylic on canvas
24 x 30, oil and acrylic on canvas
2022, acrylic and mica on wood panel, 16 x 20 in
2022, acrylic on wood panel, 16 x 20 in
Satellite Art Fair, October 2019
Satellite Art Fair, October 2019
Satellite Art Fair, October 2019
from the series ‘Supermassive Black Hole’, created between 2017 and 2018 and the subject of a solo show at Art During the Occupation in Bushwick (Brooklyn).
In large-scale paintings of fragmented images that comprise SUPERMASSIVE BLACK HOLE, Sharilyn Neidhardt’s work grapples with human feeling in the age of late-stage capitalism. Tumbling urban landscapes fractured in reflection stagger under the weight of gentrification. Human connections are strained by a near-constant barrage of information and convenience; forces of hyperreality and hypernormalization strain our mammal brains and bodies. Gentrification erases and redraws every boundary until even our landscapes are palimpsests. Obfuscating horizon lines and refracting picture planes: these paintings evoke the rootlessness, alienation, and ultimate freedom of city living in the 21st century.
oil on unstretched linen, approx 70 x 55 in
Double exposure painting based on a photograph I took on Bedford Ave in Brooklyn. It occurred to me as I worked on this that the rapid gentrification of my neighborhood in North Brooklyn gave me a kind of double-exposure-vision of the place: each storefront I look at, I also see the half-dozen or so businesses or residences that were there before.
Oil on unstretched canvas, approx 36 x 60 in
As I was starting to work with double exposures, I noted that double exposures are all around us in the city, due to all the transparent and reflective surfaces of urban life that interact with one another. Although this painting is based on a single exposure, it was the process of completing it that set me on the path thinking about how much of what we encounter in our daily lives are reflections or the real.
oil on aluminum composite, 30 x 40 in
Based on a double exposure photograph taken at an art opening in Brooklyn. This is one of the first painting is did on aluminum composite and I was really getting into the magic of painting onto a reflective surface.
A painting based on one of the first double-exposure photographs I took, on lower Broadway in SoHo. The storefronts and restaurants in this section of downtown are evaporating so rapidly that it’s hard to keep track now - every other storefront is vacant or has a pop-up shop in it. Crowds of would-be shoppers still wander around though, mingling with impatient commuters and bewildered residents.
This painting depicts an intersection near my home and alludes to the beginning of a journey - one that is begun in the dark to an unknown destination.
I’m kind of an art materials nerd and the paint used here is very special to me - I made a lot of it with my friend Jacob Ouillette in his studio. We both used to make paint professionally and I find it really rewarding even now to manufacture some of my materials. We made some of the nicest ultramarine blue that I’ve ever dipped my brushes into.
oil on unframed canvas, approx 54 x 70 in
My heartfriend/soulbrother Yiannis and I took a trip to Las Vegas in the spring to see Cher and Britney Spears concerts. The Las Vegas Strip bristles with life at every hour of the day, but it really comes alive at night - layers of neon-soaked reflections on heat-softened asphalt, sweat and glitter smeared smoked glass and Lucite, the chime and the roar of endless sales pitches all combine into something like the sound of a river to my eyes. I went to Vegas as a high schooler and I’m old enough to remember what it was like before the Disney-ification of the strip, and yet that seediness is never more than a short cab ride away from the manicured and polished main action.
oil on canvas
A double image from the West Village in Manhattan, where gentrification has vacuumed up all but the toniest gay bars and most active beer-pong parlors. Even the once-vibrant street life is mostly just rides for hire and a few drunk college girls looking for a nightcap.
This painting depicts the approach to the Bedford Avenue subway station, very near to the first loft I lived in in Brooklyn. This neighborhood of Northside Williamsburg is a palimpsest to me now - like the ghosted and torn posters stapled to the plywood construction fences, I see past the surface to what came before and even before that.
The artist at the opening reception, Sept 7 2018, Art During the Occupation Gallery in Bushwick (Brooklyn). Art work in background is ‘I’ll Never Let You Sweep Me Off My Feet’. Dress by Carri Skoczek. Photo by Eva Mueller.
view of ‘I’ll Never Let You Sweep Me Off My Feet’ , and ‘If I Cant Find You There, I Don’t Care’ at Art During the Occupation Gallery, Sept 2018.
Many of the paintings in this series were created on unframed, unstretched canvas. For their premiere exhibition, Ms Neidhardt and Mr Stout decided to exhibit them without frames or stretchers. The energy of the paintings vibrates out from the unrestricted center. Wild brushstrokes reach past the point where a clean edge might hem the image in. A raw canvas edge evokes the white edge of a printed photograph, while the palpable fold and texture of the material recalls political banners and more immediate forms of communication.
In 2016 I created a series depicting policing of peaceful demonstrations called ‘I Love A Man in a Uniform’. I’ve found that in 2020, so many pattern are repeating themselves with greater intensity. The problems of incipient fascism in our public discourse went unaddressed and unchecked. The militarization of local police forces increased both materially and spiritually, as police unions called for less restraints on on their extraordinary power. Despite civilian voices clearly calling for reduced funding and urgent reforms to policing, elected leaders in America seemed unable or unwilling to affect the status quo. Most troublingly, a lot of innocent people - primarily black and brown people - were injured and killed.
In contrast with the images from 2016, the police depicted in ‘King of Pain’ are brandishing weapons and acting aggressively. They are scarier and the message more urgent.
An image of law enforcement officers from various agencies monitoring demonstrations in Portland is overlaid with a tracing of a futurist painting (Carlo Carra’s ‘Funeral for the Anarchist Galli’)
NYPD cops in Union Square getting ready to break up a weekly trans visibility march in the autumn of 2020.
This series of paintings was created in 2016 and 2017 in the run-up to the contentious presidential election of that year and an increased awareness of police brutality in urban environments. In her capacity as a photojournalist, Sharilyn found herself lingering on photos of heavily-armed police at the perimeters of peaceful civic protests. In many cases, the officers sported military-level weapons and armor, often surplus from the War on Terror. It seemed that the constitutionally required ‘peaceful transfer of power’ was relying quite a bit on an egregious show of force. If police were responding to non-violent actions armed to the teeth, what might their response be to a more dangerous action from the populace?
Capitalism has always required a punitive and carceral apparatus to ensure private wealth stays private. For white middle class people like Ms Neidhardt, that apparatus can seem helpful or can even fade into the background unnoticed. It’s instructive that the policing at this time in American history became so gaudy and overt.
A continuation of this series for the year 2020, ‘King of Pain’ can be seen here.
ARTISTS STATEMENT
In my day job as a photoeditor at a newspaper, i sift through thousands of photojournalistic images every day. The images that I kept coming back to this year were photos of heavily armed local police, some with military hardware, responding to non-violent civil unrest. In this body of work, I'm exploring the way a heavily-armed domestic police force reinforces the status quo in late-stage capitalism. These image of armored riot cops at evoke conflicting emotions in me like: fear, anger, longing, lust, and pity; and they betray my feelings about a law-and-order mentality emerging during a volatile election season. I also invite the viewer consider the humanity of these officers, to think about the impossible jobs we assign to our constabulary, and to provide space to wonder about the psychological impact on the working men and women who perform this function for us. Most works in this series take their titles from the lyrics to the Gang of Four song ‘I Love A Man In A Uniform’.
oil on wood panel - 24 x 30 in
I’m very interested in the way force is used domestically against not just one disruptive individual but against social movements. Often those social movements have to do with a need to redress racial and economic inequities, and our society uses paramilitary power to enforce the status quo. As a member of the media, I notice the way these images are both fetishized and feared. These images are for me a way of meditating on these tensions, and a struggle to think of the real people in those uniforms, the very human trigger fingers that might protect or imperil any one of us.
oil on wood panel - 24 x 30 in
I lived through the LA riots and it was the second-most terrifying thing I’ve ever been through. I can still conjure the fear I felt that weekend so easily as I fled my Westside home in front of looting and vandalism.
oil on wood panel, 24 x 24 in
A pair of heavily armed NYPD police officers patrols the front of Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue shortly after the 2016 election.
24 x 24 in, oil and alkyd on wood panel painted gold
A NYPD officer in full riot gear walks through the Trump Tower lobby as local fixture The Naked Cowboy is seen near the elevators shortly after the 2016 elections.
oil on canvas, 30 x 30 in
In August of 2016, riots in Milwaukee were sparked by the fatal police shooting of Sylville Smith, 23. A nightly curfew was set up when unrest continued for three days.
oil on linen, 20 x 23 inches
In July of 2016, Thousands of protesters gathered in Oakland Thursday night to rally behind the two men at the center of a nationwide conversation over race and the use of force by police officers.
Oil on rough linen, 20 x 20 in
A NYPD officer with a semi-automatic rifle protects Christmas shoppers in Times Square in 2015.
oil on wood panel, 16 x 20 in
Portrait of the artist with three of the images from ‘I Love A Man In A Uniform’ as installed at Brooklyn Walkthrough in Williamsburg, May 2016. Photo by Stefano Giovannini
Paintings from the series ‘I Love A Man In A Uniform’ on view for the ‘Fractured Union’ exhibition by In/Case Projects at Brooklyn Fireproof, 2017. Photo by Meer Musa.
Sustainability and interrupting consumer culture are big issues for me, so I’m always looking for ways to reduce, recycle, and re-use. Slowly, I’ve been experimenting with different surfaces and supports for my paintings. I’ve created successful paintings on scrap wood found outside the cabinetry shops in Bushwick, and on discarded aluminum composite sign blanks recovered in East Williamsburg.
One day at my favorite coffee shop, I noticed there were burlap sacks from coffee importing just stacked in a corner and marked “FREE”. I took a few sacks to my studio and sealed them to find they make wonderful painting supports. The open weave of the material catches the paint in a dramatic way, adding a moire-like visual apperance. The rough texture and thirsty fabric adds a rough-hewn character to the work.
acrylic on burlap coffee sack, approx 37 x 52
inspired by photojournalist images of the suppression of pro-democracy riots in Hong Kong in the autumn-winter of 2019
acrylic on salvaged burlap, approx 30 x 26 in
Depicts the forceful arrest of a Hong Kong student protester. As our country flirts ever more shamelessly with authoritarianism I find myself looking overseas to pockets of resistance.
I created this spare underpainting in my studio and then transported it to ZXY Gallery a few blocks away to be completed during a live music event.
I finished thepainting at a live event at the McKibbin Lofts in front of a live band, the Aberdeen. Photographed in situ.
Showing dramatic winter light raking pedestrian along Wyckoff Avenue in Ridgewood. This was the first piece I completed on burlap, and where i first fell in love with the texture. There’s a layer of white gesso under the oil paint, which helped the lighter colors stay light. I needed the bright whites and light yellows for this painting to work, but it’s step i most omit in the other burlap paintings as I prefer to let more of the natural color and texture stay visible.
Created as an homage to local coffee emporium Sey, this work was created with oil paint on sealed burlap.
acrylic on burlap coffee sack, approx 54 x 37 in
Inspired by a still from ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’, and by intrusive thoughts about how humans are making our planet less inhabitable.
I have a shoebox in my studio full of photos and clippings and printouts of things I might want to paint someday. It’s there as a kind of inspiration reserve, and this image of a tiger swimming after a chunk of meat has probably been in that box for close to a decade. As I explored the wild, untamed possibilities of salvaged burlap, The fierce tiger seemed like a natural subject. I normally staple the burlap directly on a wall to paint, but in this case i mounted the material on a piece of scrap plywood.
salvaged burlap sacks from City of Saints
In the wake of the 2016 elections, it started to feel to me as though the structures we thought were solid were showing cracks, even crumbling out from under us completely. When I saw the 2018 photos of the Morandi bridge collapse in Genoa, they resonated strongly with me. I knew I wanted to explore my feelings of uncertainty and dread through these collapsed structures. Some are victims of poor engineering, others are victims of climate collapse. In all cases, it’s left to us to find some meaning in the rubble left behind.
The Ponte Morandi in Genoa collapsed during rush hour in August 2018, killing 43 people. The cause of the collapse is still disputed.
Images of the collapsed bridge gave my brain a perfect metaphor for the exhausted media landscape of 2018 America: as seemingly solid structures seemed to melt from beneath our feet and the signposts seemed to lead only to ruination.
I was in New York when Superstorm Sandy hit, but aside from some inconvenience ( I had a broken arm from a cycling accident at the time and my subway line washed out), it didn’t have much effect on me. But when I began to see the photos of the toll it had taken on the Jersey Shore, I had to wonder about our society’s plans to survive climate change. This image of the Star Jet, a roller coaster on a recreational pier that washed out to sea, stayed with me for a long time until I finally painted it.
God is a Bullet is a series of paintings, drawings and relief prints which discuss gun violence and the phenomena of mass shootings. It was exhibited salon-style in a studio at Brooklyn FIreproof during Bushwick Open Studio 2017.
FACTS ABOUT GUN VIOLENCE IN AMERICA
Roughly 70% of battered women have been shot or threatened with a gun
There is roughly one gun per person in America
Crimes committed with guns are VASTLY more prevalent in the USA than in other wealthy countries
Oil on reclaimed panel, 30 x 40 in
Painting depicts shattered safety glass inside a classroom. In 2012, Adam Lanza shot and killed 20 small children and 6 adult caretakers at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.
Oil on Aluminum Composite, 16 x 20 in
Based on an image of a bullet hole caused by automatic rifle fire to a windshield. From the mass shooting committed by Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik of Redlands, Ca. 14 killed and 22 injured in 2015.
oil on linen panel, 16 x 20 in
A bullet hole in safety glass caused by gunfire at a Baton Rouge shopping plaza in 2016. Gavin Long shot six police officers, three died and three were injured. Shooting occured in the wake of unrest caused by the police shooting of Alton Sterling.
oil on reclaimed wood, 4 x 10 in
a study for larger painting ‘Sandy Hook’, based on bullet damage at a Connecticut elementary school.
watercolor on board, 20 x 30 in
I was working as a photo editor at an online newspaper on the night the Las Vegas shooting happened. It was near closing time but we stayed all night moving pictures and updating the story. For ethical reasons, we try not to show photos of dead people on the front page, but because things were developing so quickly, it was hard to tell the wounded from the dead in the chaos of the moment. Most of the photographers on scene were amateurs or people who normally shoot music events - and utterly unprepared to cover a massacre. Though I’ve worked on coverage for mass shootings many times as a newspaper photo editor, the tragedy in Las Vegas really affected me strongly. Still, I wasn’t surprised when the official remedy was ‘thoughts and prayers’.
ink on vellum, 6 x 8 in
a companion piece for ‘Thoughts and Prayers’ inspired by the Las Vegas massacre.
ink on vellum, 6 x 8 in
a companion piece for ‘Thoughts and Prayers’ inspired by the Las Vegas massacre.
watercolor on board, 8 x 10 in
9 people were injured in Houston when a gunman opened fire at random in September 2016
A gunman opened fire at an apartment complex swimming pool in San Diego on Sunday evening, killing one person and injuring seven others before being fatally shot by officers, police said.
The gunman, identified as Peter Selis, was pronounced dead at the scene. Police described him as a white male who may have lived in one of the buildings, and said all of the victims were African American or Hispanic. Police said they did not know whether race was a factor in the attack.
oil on aluminum composite, 11 x 14 in
study of bullet holes in glass at the scene of a police-involved drug raid in Mexico
oil on aluminum composite, 11 x 14 in
study of bullet holes in glass at the scene of a police-involved drug raid in Mexico
oil on linen panel, 16 x 20 in
Bullet holes in the glass at a cafe near the Bataclan theater in Paris, the site of a coordinated terrorist attack which killed 89 people and injured more than 400 in November 2015
variable edition, ink on paper
another image created from a bullet hole at the San Bernardino site of a mass shooting